kids update - November 2009

Jeff is 18 months old now. He started walking a month or so ago, and now is working on talking. He can say a lot with just a few words and lots of inflection! He adds new words about every day, it seems. He wants to do what the big girls do - read the books they read, go outside when they do, drink juice because they got some. He's all boy and loves everything that bounces or has wheels. Oh, some funny things Jeff says: pear is "prrr", bear is "brrr", and ear is "rrrr". And water is "oioioioi" (don't ask me why!). And "thank you" is "ga-cum" (as in, you're welcome?).



Emily is 3 yrs, 3 months old. She can read and is improving that ability every day. She still loves the computer. And dolls/bears/etc. Her current favorite is brown bear (well-loved enough to have his nose fuzz rubbed off) and the stuffed sea turtle we got on our last Myrtle Beach trip (October), and the knitted squares blanket Grandma made her when she was a baby. She's growing up so much! Looks like a big girl now, especially since her hair has grown out.



Katherine is 5 1/2. She still loves to read, and has just gotten into the "Best in Children's Books" set I had growing up (though I'm sure I acquired some since then). http://www.lib.usm.edu/~degrum/html/research/re-bestindex.shtml Now I need to go catalog which ones I have, so I can find and acquire the others! Katherine is growing up so much too. She still loves being outside, building with Legos (though we haven't done that much lately), and more recently, "making things" out of paper and scissors. She learned how to make snowflake-style patterns (http://highhopes.com/snowflakes.html) though usually with square papers.

Lincoln Log house (inspired by Little House on the Prairie log house) - we've been reading through the Little House books recently

We also finally went on a train ride, just for fun, since Katherine wanted to ride a train. It was just a "there and back" morning trip from Burlington to Greensboro, but it was nice enough.

Unerring Widsom

"Unerring wisdom ordained your lot, and selected for you the safest and best condition...

Remember this, had any other condition been better for you than the one in which you are, divine love would have put you there.

You are placed by God in the most suitable circumstances...

Be content with such things as you have, since the Lord has ordered all things for your good."

Spurgeon (Evening, Nov.11 - from "Morning & Evening")

the Main Thing: Jesus

So long I have been searching for "the key" to my life; that thing which, if I but grasp hold of, will make me live like I'm supposed to, be the Christian I should be. Some verse, some doctrine, some phrase, which if I keep remembering it, will keep me from that depressed, joyless, critical spirit that I keep falling into.

They have all been good things: remembering that I am accepted by God; that Christ's record is applied to my account; that I don't have to be perfect for God to love me - etc. Anything that deals with my ongoing "sin problem" as a Christian.

But God is showing me that the "key" is Jesus. Himself. He is the cause of my acceptance, my forgiveness, etc. I knew that, but still somehow felt of the gospel, "Yes, I know, Jesus died for me; now let's get on with being the Christian I'm supposed to be."

The longing within, when seeing Christians who were so "real", of "how can I be like them?" - but now I see: I don't need primarily to be like them - but to have Jesus! He is the key to my attitude, my life, my joy, my righteousness. If I cling to Him - then it will be enough.

The gospel: that Jesus became man and died for my sins to take away God's wrath toward me - this is all I need.

And any doctrine has to lead back to Jesus to avoid being off-balanced.

Any focus of my life, if it does not have Jesus as its main thing, will make something else my idol. I can't have the passion of my life be homeschooling, or saving money, or adoption by God, or eating in a healthy way - if it does not bring the focus back to Jesus. I can homeschool for Jesus, but if I forget Him in my homeschooling, it consumes me. I can save money in order to spend it for Jesus' cause, but not for its own sake, or money becomes my idol. I can eat healthy for Jesus, but not for its own sake, or health becomes my idol. I can think about being a child of God, but if I do it divorced from the Savior who redeemed me, I fall into the same traps as before, basing my relationship with God on my perception of how I have been doing as a Christian lately.

Jesus is the Main Thing. If you have anything else, fine - but you must have Jesus. If you teach your children anything else, that's great - but you must teach them Jesus. In everything. All the time. Every day.

If you have only one life doctrine, one belief you live by: it must be, the gospel. Jesus, who died to take away my sins.

Jesus must be everything to me - or I will have nothing.

kids update - October 2009

Boy, I hadn't realized it had been so long since I posted anything!

Jeff is finally walking! And giving up crawling. He just started several weeks ago, and has taken off. He looks so much taller standing up.



Emily is reading. She got through the whole "Teach your child to read in 100 easy lessons" book, and we try to practice some reading at least a few days a week.



Katherine is kindergarten age. We are homeschooling (at least, trying to!). We have the help of our "Enrichment" classes, which is a sort of homeschool co-op with people from our church. Enrichment meets one morning a week, and Katherine gets to have a literature/history/crafts class, along with a science class. I get to teach her science (and thereby avoid paying for her classes!). So Grandma takes the younger two kids while I teach 9 kindergartners about the Human Body (and get groceries if there is time before class).



We usually get some math and some reading done 3-4 days a week with both girls. History right now consists of Katherine's literature class (which focuses on the colonial period in America) and our reading of the Little House on the Prairie books, which she loves.

I'm starting to learn that the key to my life, my attitude, my joy, my "success" in a day - is Jesus. That I need to be "looking to Jesus" in everything... would that I did it all the time!

And I am starting to learn that life does not have to be perfect

David's job is up in the air, since his current boss can't keep him past the end of the year. We are praying that one of the other departments in his company can take him on instead.

We had a lovely week at the beach in October. The Lord gave us some nice weather, and time with friends and family.

ferry ride on the way to the beach

petting area at NC Aquarium at Fort Fisher

big tortoises at "Alligator Adventure" in Myrtle Beach

alligator sculpture - fun to play on

as always, pictures on the dock near our favorite seafood restaurant in Calabash, NC ("Dockside")

feeding seagulls

kids update - July 2009

This won't be long, but at least I'll put a few recent pictures of the kids.

Jeff making his sisters laugh

One of my favorite pictures of Jeff

Jeff with a face full of... plum, I think. He loves fruit!

Emily "cooking" (?) with sunflower seed hulls out on the deck
(She is finally growing some hair!)


Emily and Katherine picking blueberries

Katherine doing what she loves to do - reading!

servants and sons

I was praying to ask God to help us sing a Messiah concert last night, and was about to pray (as I often had in high school), "send angels to help us sing". It occurred to me that the angels can't sing the Messiah, at least, not some of the parts we were singing - "All we like sheep have gone astray", "and with His stripes we are healed" etc. Jesus is not their Redeemer. These are things that "angels long to look into".

The angels will forever be God's servants. But for all eternity, we get the privilege of being His children!

faith obeys

It really is faith and love that produces obedience. I found commands that I balked at obeying. But the Lord reminded me that I really would be happier if I obeyed. Faith believes that, and loves her Master, and it makes one willing to submit. If HE says I will be happier doing what He says, then though my flesh rebels, I believe it and am glad to obey.

broken cisterns

I am the idol of my heart

why do we insist upon
clinging to our own broken cisterns,
turning away from God who is
the Fountain of living water?

He casts all our sins
into the depths of the sea

full of Jesus

I want to lose my life rather than waste it. Missionaries do it all the time. But here? How do I get past the materialism of my culture, the focus on what I can see?

In the book Don't Waste Your Life, ch.5, John Piper says
...it is right to risk for the cause of Christ. It is right to engage the enemy and say, "May the LORD do what seems good to him." It is right to serve the people of God, and say, "If I perish, I perish!" It is right to stand before the fiery furnace of affliction and refuse to bow down to the gods of this world. This is the road that leads to fullness of joy and pleasures forevermore. At the end of every other road-secure and risk-free-we will put our face in our hands and say, "I've wasted it!"

1Peter 1:17-19 tells us that God had to pay blood to redeem us from the futile way of life we used to have. This should make us sober and live our lives in reverent fear, for Him.

I want to "bleed Jesus" - so that wherever you poke me, He comes out. We have missionary friends like that, Ken & Kath Ashcroft. No matter what the situation, they start speaking of Jesus. No matter what the conversation, you are sure to hear a genuine "praise the Lord!" or "isn't God good!" I want to be like that.

But how?
To be full of Jesus. To indeed, make much of Him. Wherever I am. Wherever He has put me. Surely He puts people in America, not to rot in materialism, but to be so full of Him that they want to tell others around them who He is, and how He is more precious than life.

THE precious thing

Jesus is not just "the most precious thing" to a Christian; He is THE precious Thing. In Heaven, we will see the face of God - and it will be enough for us. (Rev.22:4).

As the song "God and God Alone" puts it:

"He will be our one desire,
Our hearts will never tire
Of God, and God alone."

amen!

Last night in a sermon about Jesus' return, our pastor said "the purpose of this life is to prepare us for the life to come."

We aren't just here to bide our time and try to fill it with something useful till we die - but to be preparing for eternity by how we live. To use our money to buy eternal treasure. To know God as THE precious thing, as He will be to us in eternity.

The goal is not a clean house, educated and well-behaved children, a good job, a nice retirement - the goal is for God to be "our one desire", even now. Everything else is to serve that purpose. Clean my house out of love for God, as steward of the house I am borrowing from Him. Care for my children as raising those loaned to me for a short time, desiring to show them that God is everything to me, and praying that He will make Himself everything to them as well. Serve God in whatever job He gives me, with all my heart, as working for Him rather than for men, using it as opportunity to make much of Him there.

To live in light of eternity - oh help me do so!

to proclaim His excellencies!

This is why God made us to be His own people: "But you are... a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. " (1Pet.2:9).

Not so that we could pursue our own righteousness here, and be discouraged when we keep falling ever short of the mark - but so that we could rejoice in Jesus who is our righteousness, and love HIM ever more and more, and proclaim His excellencies to the dying world around us.

We are told to "prepare our minds for action" and "be sober-minded" - not in order to go out and be good, but rather to "set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ." Yes, we are to be "obedient children", not "conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct". But holy implies, not perfect and unsinning, but rather, devoted to God in all that we do. Set apart for Him. We were bought by Him; we are to be fully His, to do all that we do as unto Him, in love for Him. (1Pet.1:13-14).

green grass

Maybe it's just that I'm tired today, but I'm finding myself in the weariness of motherhood. It seems an effort to go find lunch (again) for children who seem always hungry. To again answer all those childish questions, mediate disputes, quell tempers, discipline for sin... how do mothers do it anyway? To think the grass is surely greener somewhere else, anywhere else.

...except we think the grass is greener only because, from this far away, we can't see the weeds or the difficult soil that accompany that grass over there.

Here I am learning about "making much of Christ" in every situation, being content wherever you are, but today has been NOT practicing what I preach. If I can but look to Him, see this as from His hand, and see that my present duties are not "the place I am stuck in" but rather His saying, "do this for Me". "But Lord, aren't there more noble things to do? Greater, more useful things than these?" But He doesn't call the noble and the great. He commends the widow whose good works began with being a wife and MOTHER. He says we will be commended for being faithful in little.

O help me then, to be faithful in this Little here. To do it all for You. Then I am content in my own grass. Then I do not wish to be elsewhere, for He wants me here, to "tend this plot" - not that huge farm out there, but this little garden here. O grant me grace, and joy, to serve You with all my being, right here and now!

Christmas

We had a great time at Christmas, first with David's family (which gathered here the week before) and then with my family (which gathered, all who could, at Matthew & Jolene's new house in the Augusta, GA area) the week of Christmas.

Emily sings "O come, all-ee faithful, joyful and joy-umphant..."

A few pictures of our Christmas time this year:

Emily watching her cousin Elijah play Peggle

Katherine and cousin Natalie playing Hungry Hippos

The kids played outside in the dirt - fun!

All the Peters cousins (missing are those who couldn't make it: Abbie (Stokes) and Natalie and Adwen (Keller))

We did a "birth-minute" day where everyone's birthday was turned into a minute of the day (e.g. the birthday May 5 becomes "5:05"), and during that one minute, we celebrated that person's birthday, giving them a brownie (in lieu of cake) with candle to blow out, and everyone sang "Happy Birthday" quickly, and then they could eat their treat.

Waving good-bye to us from the porch (Jolene with Anna and Rachel)